No Demons But Us

by A. S. Etaski

  “I can see how it worries you, Sirana. Don’t let it. The lust will lessen over the next few cycles, and your energy will return to normal. A little faster if you indulge, though the only way to stop it instantly is to become pregnant. I can see that hasn’t happened.”

  I swallowed.

  She spoke with a voice of command. “Offer your body to any of the Red Sisters, no one but the Sisters. This order goes forward until I say otherwise. No males, no matter how submissive, understand? On pain of death, Sirana.”

  I felt myself deflate with regret. “Yes, Elder.”

  She noticed; her mouth quirked. “So then Jaunda found you both and brought you back, is that so?”

  Jaunda. That’s her name. I nodded. “Yes, Elder.”

  “Did anyone else use you?”

  “No. Lead Jaunda wouldn’t let them. Kiren and Lawret.”

  D’Shea was pleased I was paying attention despite the magical weakness, I could tell. “You have very few marks.”

  “I stole a healing potion.”

  “Yes, I can see some magical residue. As I could before.”

  My eyes narrowed then. Once again on purpose, the Elder recalled for me a well-chosen detail. The first time we ever met, just after Jilrina fell to her death. I almost asked how long she’d been watching me, but that wasn’t as important as the question of my future.

  “So, your answer?” I prompted. “To help me?”

  D’Shea tilted her head in thought. “What mistakes to avoid? Becoming pregnant, for one. For another, Elder Rausery. Although you probably won’t be able to avoid that. Just remember that as in the trials, you cannot be permanently crippled.”

  She didn’t even pause to give me an opportunity to react to that.

  “Let’s see. Avoid offending the Valsharess or the Priesthood, deserting the Sisterhood, being more trouble than you’re worth, and failing to obey your superiors. There are too many pitfalls to name, Sirana, but trust your instincts, and you’ll do well enough.”

  All common sense. And vague. Although I hadn’t been specific myself.

  “Alright. What is the very next thing I must do to become a Red Sister?” I asked.

  D’Shea chuckled deeply, reaching to take a sip from a half-full glass of dark wine. “Stay inside this complex. Submit to be tested. Don’t try to escape. Each of the Sisters will test you in her own way. If they don’t find you lacking, you’ll earn a uniform. Then we’ll train you on more specifics.”

  “And who will you be to me?”

  “Your primary superior. My word goes above all others for you, except for Elder Rausery, the Red Sister Prime, and the Valsharess. Although if an order does not conflict directly with my instructions, do not defy another of a higher rank. It will take time to rise in the Sisterhood, Sirana, but all who survive do rise.”

  I extrapolated quickly from that. “Is Rausery your superior?”

  D’Shea sipped her wine again, smiling small and elegant. “In age, yes. Not rank. Our specialties are different. The Red Sisters have ‘teams,’ for lack of a better word. As in our army, there are units within the larger body. It is more efficient than if the pecking order was determined straight down from the Prime Sister.

  “Our primary objective is to serve and protect the Valsharess. The Priesthood holds little authority over us. They can direct us toward known subversives and heretics, but we are the balancing power which prevents the Priesthood from dominating the Chosen on our Throne. Checks and balances, a needed anchor, or you might imagine how the power structure would change every two-span with Braqth’s Priestesses in charge.”

  I nodded, shuddered even to think it. Then I had to ask. “If I should somehow fail to earn the uniform?”

  My superior’s gaze settled on me as if determining whether I was having doubts. I maintained that gaze. I was not; I simply didn’t want to be kept guessing.

  “It would depend on the ‘how’ of the failure, but if you weren’t executed, you would become either a slave stripped of her will or given to the Priestesses to be transformed into a Dread Spider, which amounts to the same thing. The dungeon isn’t an option.”

  The cold chill and dread flooding me were welcome, in a way. I’d guessed correctly, and it was all in line with what made the most sense to me. I could understand this group, it was within my ability. They could become much less of a mystery, as I would join it. I wanted to explore all aspects of it, I wanted to see, and I wanted to know; I wanted to become. It was my new purpose in living. It was the reason I’d come back despite what happened with Kain.

  D’Shea stood up smoothly, setting down her wine glass and turned her back on me. Those would be all the answers I’d receive for now, and she’d been generous. She stepped over to a textured bathing tub, turning polished metal knobs that opened a broad-mouthed spout, and water began to flow, filling the vessel at a quick rate.

  I was amazed that I could detect humid heat in my nose. A water system like this was known in the Noble Houses, but the source of the heat—if there was one—ranged anywhere from a complicated connection to a deep thermal spring to laborious fires to magically-imbued heating stones. I could not know how this was heated, but I was suddenly hungry for a warm bath all the same. I knew I stank.

  I sat, however, as D’Shea disrobed, the purple cloth sliding down her skin as she kept her back to me. My eyes drifted in the direction I’d heard a weapon be placed upon my arrival and saw my House dagger laying there. It was within reasonable reach; D’Shea was too far away to stop me from reclaiming it. Was she was testing me? Almost certain. No Davrin stayed facing away from another so long if they weren’t.

  I remained as I was on the floor as she removed her sandals and added some ground crystal to the water. D’Shea was naked, taking down her hair as she turned, and she smiled at me, amusement glinting in her eyes, red as her wine.

  “Bathe me, Sirana.”

  Very well. I got to my feet for the first time in a while, very stiff and sore from top to bottom. Still, I would play the servant to my superior as I wanted the hot bath for certain, but I also expected this was D’Shea’s excuse take her turn with me before all the others did. Did she have a tool like Gaelan’s? Would she use it?

  The water was almost too hot as we settled down. The heat seeped into my muscle down to my bone, setting our skins bright with Radiants despite the candles interfering with Dark Sight. I groaned inwardly. Whatever the Sorceress had added to the water was working to soothe my nether regions. At a look from her, I took the bottle of scented soap and a large, plush cloth and began to soap her up above the waist. She was well-formed and muscled as I was, perhaps more so, although not unusually bulky. A very few, subtle silver lines marked her black skin, and I was inwardly shocked to see those scars.

  One scar ran about finger-length along her ribcage beneath her left breast, another crossing her spine between her shoulder blades, and—when she stood up for me to scrub below her waist, I saw another drawn with the direction of the muscle on her abdomen on the right side. That scar would be parallel to her womb. They were small and easily erased, one would think. Why had she kept them?

  After she’d spread her legs for me to wash between, which I did and rinsed in good time, I fully expected her to order me to put my mouth on her then. I waited for the order.

  She didn’t give it.

  The Elder sat down in the water and turned around again, telling me to wash her hair next, which I did, lingering a bit massaging her scalp and letting the wet, soapy hair run through my fingers before rinsing. After we’d finished, she languished in hot water and watched me as I cleaned myself head-to-toe. When that was complete, we just sat to feel it slowly cool. She silenced me each time I tried to ask a question, and I stopped when she looked vaguely annoyed. It was quiet in her chamber as it had been in the wilderness cave where I’d woken up.

  Eventually, the water was no longer pleasant, and we got out. I was instructed to pull the drainer. I d
ried the Elder before I dried myself, and I still awaited the order to either start my oral service or to present myself for inspection. Instead, I was told to plait her lightly damp hair for her, and then do my own.

  “It is late,” she said, her voice low after I’d tied off my own braid.

  She gestured toward a simple but comfortable bed with white sheets, barely large enough for two bodies, and I appraised it with ambivalence. I was exhausted enough to fall into reverie shortly after climbing into a bed like that; would she command me to perform for a mark or so upon it before I could sleep?

  At my hesitation, she gestured again with a frown. “Get in.”

  I settled in, waiting, expectant as the candles went out, but D’Shea had only lain down and relaxed. Within a short but dragging time of me fighting to keep myself awake despite the soft bed sucking the very will out of me, despite expecting something to happen, I was almost certain Elder D’Shea was deep in Reverie.

  Asleep.

  I’d never lain next to a female who was unconscious while I was awake. Though we were both nude, D’Shea didn’t touch me or reach for me. We lay close but apart. She smelled good, but I dared not reach to touch her although I had the impulse. I had been tired, but my confusion seized me long enough for the soft sheets to brush my skin and awaken it, for my hand to reach thoughtlessly between my thighs. My nerves sizzled; there was no way I was following her into such an enviable state now.

  Goddess damn it! I just want a rest from this fucking need!

  At the very least in all this, I knew I wasn’t pregnant. Looking back, it had been so narrowly avoided—and not through my own efforts but that of the Consort and my new Sister.

  Biting my lip, holding in my whimpers, I tried to bring myself off in silence. My Elder had said this urge would lessen in time, but indulgence was part of the process. I could be satisfied, I had to be, even for a little while. Despite my best attempt, I must have been shaking the bed. Elder D’Shea turned her head toward me, and her eyes opened. She smiled. I froze.

  “Here, I shall help.” Her voice was husky with sleep. “Just this once.”

  She reached down, moved my hand out of the way and cupped my slobbering mound. I sucked in my breath as the heel of her hand pressed to me, and her middle finger slipped inside my slit. She did not stroke me, however. She said something I didn’t understand.

  Then her hand shocked me.

  “Godd—!” I strangled a squeak, then I was cumming. My chirps and yips sounded ridiculous to my own ears as I humped against her hand, but my body loved every stroke. Sensation shot high in an instant took a long time to come back down, and I was panting by the end.

  She brushed a damp thread of hair from my brow. “Rest. While you can.”

  I nodded, my eyes dropping. The next moment my Reverie took hold of me while it could.

  CHAPTER 7

  Elder D’Shea dressed and donned her uniform grooming herself. I was not required to help, and I was offered no clothes although was allowed to brush my hair. I braided it as well to keep it out of my eyes. When it was time to leave this small, warm place and walk out that door, for an instant I wished I had never even gotten out of her bed.

  I didn’t know what, or who, was on the other side of the door, but Kiren’s blurt in the interrogation cave about getting me “before the others” collided with the Sorceress’s confession of sending Gaelan with explicit orders to make the first time “reasonably pleasant.” The war inside was fierce between my head and my crotch, and the thought came to me that other recruits from the Nobility wouldn’t have Priestess magic making them want the blunt crudity the Red Sisters had to offer. Not in that way. Was that fortunate or not?

  Offer your body to Red Sisters only, D’Shea had said. No males. This order goes forward until I say otherwise.

  I had only seen two extremes so far with these magic cocks: intimidating torture of strangers, and Gaelan being “pleasant” under D’Shea’s direction, or so she said. Similarly, I was certain Lead Jaunda had wanted to do something with me in my state; the desire on her face as she admired my position, impaled by Gaelan, had burned bright even in the dark. Yet she had prevented two others from claiming more than opportunistic molestation. Lastly, Elder D’Shea had kept her hands off me at first; she had me touch her instead, and in practical terms only, until the moment I just couldn’t sleep. Then she got me off in a few flicks and nothing for herself.

  And now?

  My gut told me I was about to find out why Elder D’Shea assumed that she—and those undoubtedly loyal to her—would be favorable to me by comparison. It implied that she wanted me to trust her, to pledge my loyalty to her as well. It was obvious manipulation, granting some respect and boundaries when not required, but, in these the circumstances, what options did I have? No one had ever courted my favor before, even if it was asking my willing servitude. And what else could I think to demand? Red Sisters had rank, and the longer one survived, the higher the rank.

  She answered when I asked, in trade for recounting my journey. She could have demanded my story for nothing. A threat would have worked.

  I could choose my loyalty, perhaps, or refuse to grant it, but that was it. I might even be considered lucky that D’Shea gave me solid reasons why it should be to her I chose. The other two elder females hadn’t even spoken to me.

  “Follow,” she commanded.

  I could sense we were below the Great Cavern itself, though not far. This place had the same feeling as our cellars and cisterns at House Thalluen, but I walked in an interconnected, complete compound. The hallways were narrow and extremely bare. No decoration of any sort, no rugs or padding, no mirrors.

  There were heatless torches near the low ceiling, but even those were spaced far enough apart that the place remained dim, colors muted while my Dark Sight struggled to decide whether to engage or not. It gave the area a surreal quality; this was one of those conditions where space itself played tricks on Davrin eyes.

  Someone was coming around the next bend. Two.

  These Red Sisters were younger, and a bit louder—though that may have only been because I was barefoot. They were aware of us by the time we spotted each other. In unison, they stopped and lifted their fists to rest near their temples in a salute to Elder D’Shea. It was a motion I hadn’t seen before, but I noted how it offered a clear opening to jam a dagger anywhere from armpit to abdomen.

  Must be the significance.

  As soon as the Elder acknowledged them with a nod of her chin—she did not raise her arm in any similar fashion, nor did she stop walking—the two grinned at me. Hungry predator looks.

  “The ‘cruit made it,” one commented to the other.

  “Carry on, Corpora,” the Elder said without pausing.

  One reached out as I passed, but I slithered by her, skimming the wall, and kept close to D’Shea’s back. While I hated them being behind me and watching us, I was glad they didn’t follow.

  “Nice ass,” the other said as they continued on their way.

  We took another few curves, and I noticed there were no hard corners in this place as in the Palace and Sanctuary and no stairs. That was not to say some bends weren’t extreme enough to be called a turn, but the pathways up and down were ramps, and overall the floor plan mimicked the natural tunnels of the Deepearth far more than most of our city’s other constructed shelters. I wasn’t sure if that was the point, but I could not mistake this place—wherever I was—for any other.

  We took one true decline to another level and came to an oversized door at an apparent dead-end. It was rune-marked, and even I could feel the warning of Wards. Elder D’Shea suspended them with ease and, in the same motion, gave some command which caused the doors to slide open part way, enough for the two of us but no more.

  “At last, D’Shea. Kept me waiting. Let’s just push through this.”

  The speaker was the eldest Red Sister, the Prime, and she didn’t look up from the stout tabl
e bearing maps, rolls of scrolls, and scores of notes. All of this rested on a platform with space around to present to an audience in an otherwise bare, black-stone room. There was not one decoration, and even the candles and torches by which we could see were unremarkable.

  The Red Sisters do not demand things of vanity for their headquarters. Maybe they don’t loot much when fighting, not like the army.

  I was distracting myself on purpose. I did not know what “push through this” meant, but the Prime made it clear I was a disruption in her cycle. She may not have noticed if I had never returned from the wilderness. Her indifference was so blatant that I might have thought it for show if I didn’t see her dead, resentful eyes as she came around the table and down the ramp to our level, her red cloak flowing behind her.

  Such a stark contrast to the two Sisters who had drooled as if presented with a fresh plate of meat, or Gaelan and Jaunda, who used my name and knew who I was. Or Elder D’Shea, talking to me, washing and resting with me. Deigning to express even modest approval in anything I said or did. Would the Prime’s interest in me ever change? What did I have to do to prove myself? Did I even want her attention?

  I followed the Elder’s lead and kept my feet firmly planted, although the Prime tested my resolve. She got too close, showed me she was taller and stronger. Her leathers did not creak; they were well worn and silent. I kept my chin and eyes down, staring at her chest. She sniffed me like a scavenger vaguely interested if there was a meal buried underneath a pile of trash.

  “Still reeks of magic,” the Prime said, and D’Shea answered.

  “Yes, Prime. The ritual’s effects will wear off, but it may take a few more cycles without a bua to sate her.”

  The mention of young males, even as a general description, brought out the same tone of distaste as when I’d been on the Altar. “Priestesses. Hmph. Still usable?”

  “Yes, Prime, she is. Quite useable.”

  Useable. I remembered the Consort being useable, writhing beneath me, his cock up inside me. I felt my face and my gut flush alarmingly fast. The Prime noticed me squirming, and whether she knew I was thinking about males or not, she still might have wanted to spit.